Thomas, ninth Baron Ros (1427–1464)
The ninth baron - a soldier, was son and heir of Thomas, eighth Baron Ros,born 26 September, 1406 and Eleanor, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset was his half-brother.Born at Conisbrough Castle on 9 September 1427, Ros was three years old at his father's death in 1430. In July 1431 his wardship and marriage were granted to John - Lord Tiptoft, whose daughter, Philippa, he later married. Following his guardian's death in January 1443 he received a grant from the exchequer of £40 per annum for the remainder of his minority on 16 May 1443. In March 1446 , at the age of eighteen, was given licence to enter his lands concentrated in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and the north midlands, which included the castle and Lordship of Helmsley, Yorkshire, and Belvoir in Leicestershire.
On the eve of the Wars of the Roses, the great northern families of Neville and Percy embarked on a full-scale feud, Ros firmly sided with the Percys and in 1454 he became an active participant in Percy rebellion after Richard, Duke of York, became protector of England. Almost certainly he fought on the losing side at the first battle of St Albans in May 1455, but, when the Lancastrians reasserted themselves in 1456, he soon renewed his commitment to Henry VI's troubled regime, and in November 1458 he was prominent in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
When civil war broke out in the autumn of 1460, Ros helped assemble the substantial Lancastrian force near the city of Hull which, on 30 December, proved victorious at the battle of Wakefield where Richard of York himself was killed.
In June 1461, he led a bold raid across the Scottish border, marched through Northumberland, and on 26 June raised the Lancastrian standard at Brancepeth Castle in south Durham. A futile gesture this may have been, since Ros and his fellow loyalists were rapidly expelled, but it certainly showed the strength of his commitment to Henry VI as well as helping ensure his attainder for treason by parliament in November 1461. By the spring of 1464, however, Lancastrian resistance in the north was faltering: the end came with Yorkist victories in the field at Hedgeley Moor in April and Hexham in May. Ros fought in both battles and, although he escaped after Hexham, he was captured in a wood two days later, taken to Newcastle upon Tyne, and executed there on 17 May 1464. He was buried in Hexham.
Ros's legacy was not a happy one. His early marriage to Philippa Tiptoft had provided him with a son and heir, Edmund who died unmarried in October 1508. However, when during the first years of Henry VII's reign the sentence of attainder on the Ros family was reversed, it was soon followed by the granting of custody of the estates to Edmund's brother-in-law Sir Thomas Lovell since Edmund was incapable of controlling his own affairs. The Ros title passed to the Manners family through the marriage in 1469 of Thomas's eldest daughter, Eleanor,(died 13.10.1508) to Sir Robert Manners (died 1495), Sheriff of Northumberland